My GTX 470 is loud, hot, and generally obnoxious. I have had the water cooling bug for a couple years but I have been too scared to go through with it. Now I say F it!!!! I am going to try my hand at watercooling my GTX 470. Here is what I want:

Parts from the for sale section! It will be a few weeks before I have the cash to buy all of these parts so I don't mind waiting and browsing the FS section to find good parts. I particularly would like to get a used water block. I know I just missed out on one or two which have already sold.

A dual 5.25" bay reservoir. I don't like the idea of having to fill the loop without a reservoir and making a huge mess. I also want to see the water. I might have to get a single bay reservoir because of where I want to locate the radiator.

A quiet system. I don't want stupidly high RPM fans and crazy loud pumps. I want to forget that it is there because it's so quiet.

It must be a 240mm radiator that I can fit in the front of my Antec 1200 case. I need to keep one of the 3 bay HDD cages in there so I can put two HDDs and an SSD.

So what stuff do I need? I need a good 240mm RAD, two fans (Gentle Typhoons have been mentioned a lot recently), tubing, pump, reservoir, full cover GPU block, barbs. Can I do this for under $200?

I wanted to physically go to CrazyPC store because this weekend I am moving into a house that is 45 minutes away. But checking their website, they do not seem to have a lot of good parts. Edited by Greg121986 - 8/17/10 at 7:22am

I would like to go with a custom loop, just to try something new for me. I've never done this and I would like to take on a new project.

After seeing the price of brand new full cover blocks, I don't think I can do this for under $200 lol. I saw some Koolance blocks in the FS section for $85. I would like to score one of those, but I always get impatient so I would probly buy a brand new one once I have money in hand.

What I would like to do is buy a 240mm Rad right now and try to fit it into my case before I buy all of the other parts. I want to make sure I can easily get it in there and make everything work before I commit to such a large cost.

Cooling the GTX 470 for $200 is going to be pretty rough. You're looking at $100+ just for a full cover block unless you get lucky and find one used. Even a MCW60 + Ramsinks is going to be around $80. If the $200 includes buying a GPU block, I'd say you'll be hard-pressed to build something in that budget.

You're better off waiting for some more aftermarket air coolers to come out. Arctic Cooling is coming out with an accelero version for the GTX 470 soon and on the inno3d cards that use it now it lowers load temps by about 20C over the stock cooler.

To buy a decent setup new would cost you ~$310 with shipping. You could prob knock off $40 if you buy things used, but the tubing, AP14/15's, and the GPU block you're most likely going to have to buy new.Edited by XCRapid - 8/11/10 at 12:05pm

I had two AC Xtreme GTX 280 coolers on my previous GTX 260s, and I loved them. But when they were "coming out soon" it took 6 months or more for them to actually be available. I really don't want to wait that long. They also turned out to not be as effective as I thought they would be for cooling the VRMs.

I am pretty much set on a full cover block. I am patient enough to wait for a full cover block to show up in the for sale section. I just missed two, hopefully there are more coming. If I have to buy a new block, I think I will buy the radiator first and make sure I can fit everything into my case first. That way just in case this whole thing fails, I won't be out $150 on a full cover block.

Also, would it be worth it or advisable to do push pull with mis-matched fans? I would think that would cause some unwanted air flow issues. But I will have 2 Antec tri cool fans that are coming out of the front of my case and I thought I might try to put them as pull, with the GT's as push. Or I can gut them and use them as shrouds.

If you're going to mix with louder fans, then don't bother with the Gentle Typhoons. Their main selling point is high static pressure at quiet dba. If you are mixing them with a set of lower rpm quiet fans, then that'll probably be okay.

If you're willing to wait for a used block to go on sale, you can probably snag one for $80. I don't think they're going to go much lower than that because GTX 470's are still quite in demand.